Baciccio

Baciccio, born Giovanni Battista Gaulli, is best known for one of the most dazzling ceilings in Rome: The Triumph of the Name of Jesus in the church of the Gesù. Figures seem to float up into heaven and spill over the frame, using painted and stucco figures together to break the line between the ceiling and the sky.

Born in Genoa, he trained there before moving to Rome, where he was taken up by Gian Lorenzo Bernini. He joined the Accademia di San Luca in 1662 and became both a leading fresco painter and a sought-after portraitist, painting popes, cardinals and Bernini himself.

His portraits are lively and direct, and his altarpieces are full of movement and warm colour. The Gesù ceiling remains his best-known work. Look at the way his figures twist and turn in space, a hallmark of the High Baroque.